These are interesting times for the Linux desktop. The often-overlooked area of the Linux ecosystem is now the centre of attention and, while some users have welcomed the changes, others have reacted in true community style: ranting and raging, threatening to abandon ship or, when all else fails, demanding a fork. It's an all-too-familiar sight for those who were around when KDE shocked users with it's 4.0 release. It was a similar story with the release of Gnome 3.0, but with an interesting twist ? Ubuntu, the most popular Gnome distribution, rolled out its own home-grown interface on top of Gnome. Ubuntu's Unity is as radical as Gnome 3. Users who were looking for a place of refuge from either camp are crying foul. But, as many have discovered, switching desktops isn't as easy as it used to be. Switching from the Deb world of Ubuntu to the RPM land of Fedora, or vice versa, can be just as tedious as getting used to the nuances of a new desktop.